You will fail at New Product Development (NPD) … unless you do this!

March 4, 2019Debankan Chattopadhyay

I don’t want to sound like the messenger of Doom,
but facts are facts. There are certain things you need
to do…to accomplish certain other things. That's just
how life works.
But of course, you knew all that.

I don’t want to sound like the messenger of Doom,
but facts are facts. There are certain things you need
to do…to accomplish certain other things. That’s just
how life works.

Engineering is no different. In fact, it’s probably a lot
more complex than most things you will do in life.
Engineering is fun, when you understand it but
god-awfully complicated, when you don’t. And as is
true about creating anything new – be it a piece of
software, a winch or a kitchen appliance – new
product development or NPD, as it is often referred
to in engineering jargon, requires knowledge,
patience, the right environment, skills, sufficient
budget and at times… some outside help.

Why do I need outside help?

It's one thing for a 5-year old to hum to the tune of
"I can do this alone, all on my own, I’m grown...", and
another thing for you to adopt the same mantra and
take the burden of new product development as a
solo effort. Depending on where you are based,
there could be several factors that make a case for
seeking outside assistance. Things like acute
shortage of technical talent, willingness to work in
remote/rural locations and increasing costs
associated with high local wages. It's for situations
like these that identifying a partner with a deep and
experienced engineering talent pool in a lower cost
region might make a lot of practical business sense.

How can I ensure success of my new product development initiatives?

For every successful new product that we lay our
hands on, there are tens of thousands of others that
don’t see the light of the day. To ensure that you’re
on the right side of that equation, here are things
you need to do for any NPD initiative you embark
upon:

Be Honest

Can’t stress this enough, but this is likely the most
important thing for you to succeed in NPD. Be
honest about what it is you are capable of doing. It’s
good to have stretch goals, but ensure that you don’t
set out to do something so far out there, that in the
end you are disappointed when you fail.

Why work with CCE?

If there’s anything you can take to the bank is the fact
that we are honest. Brutally honest…almost to a fault!
We do not believe we know everything, and most
certainly not the core of your business or product.
But what we do know is we have a great group of
core, experienced engineers. Only if we are 100%
certain that we can help you with your NPD
initiatives, will we offer our services. If not, no harm
done. You’re better off working with someone who
does. Because we understand that there’s a lot that’s
riding on a new product – your brand, your
reputation, your goodwill and a lot more that goes
well beyond the success/failure of the product itself.

Assemble the right team

Knowing what you can do, get a core group of
people with relevant experience and who are driven.
There’s no substitute for knowledge, experience and
an unrelenting drive.

Why work with CCE?

CCE has a group of experienced and talented
engineers on staff with experience in core design
across various industry verticals that include, but are
not limited to, Semiconductor Equipment, Consumer
Appliances, Industrial Machinery, Woodworking
among others. We have functional experts in drive
control mechanisms, electronics with sensors, fluid
flow, energy optimization etc. who have equal parts
of drive, knowledge and great work ethics to ensure
success of your new product development initiative.

Set up the right processes

Engineers are analytical and love processes. But
that’s more out of habit than anything else. But
processes also help in preventing unnecessary
bottlenecks and errors. And when things do go
wrong, and I assure you that they will, processes help
you understand what went wrong and why. In a new
product development environment, getting to the
root cause of a problem, when it happens, is possible
only when you have sound processes in place.
Otherwise, you will waste countless hours in ad-hoc
troubleshooting exercises.

Why work with CCE?

At the start of any engagement, CCE’s local services
and program managers spend a considerable
amount of time understanding your internal
processes, standards, best practices to ensure
absolute smooth workflow when the actual work
does start. They are responsible for any relevant
customer Way of Working (WoW) training that the
team needs and gathers all the key process metrics
that should be tracked to judge success of the
project. All this is codified in our proprietary work
order management tool, PowerLink.

Invest in a reliable communication infrastructure

Any collaborative endeavor needs a good
communication framework so that all stakeholders
are on the same page and there is no
miscommunication. Every small “misunderstanding”
in a collaborative project can provide costly in terms
of time and resources. And for any new product
development effort, those two things are already
pretty scarce to begin with.

Why work with CCE?

CCE understands the importance of communication
between collaborators working on new product
development, especially when using remote teams.
CCE has developed an innovative program, TrEND
(Trusted Engineer Next Door), to establish a reliable
communication system that fosters natural sharing
of design and engineering ideas in a way as if
everyone is in the same room. TrEND leverages
advanced software to coordinate video, audio and
CAD streams from both sides of the geographically
dispersed conversation, to create a natural
collaboration experience. TrEND provides all of the
accessibility you need when working with remote
teams on collaborative projects and will certainly
accelerate your new product development process.

Select the "right" tools

Just as important as picking the right team, is
selecting the right set of tools required for the job. Be
it design software, an analysis package or testing
laboratory. Depending on what you are trying to
build, budgeting correctly for the “right” tools, not the
“cheapest”, is key.

Why work with CCE?

CCE has access to all commonly used tools for
advanced product engineering, design and analysis.
Besides commercially available software, and given its
roots in CAD software development, CCE also uses
some of its proprietary software, especially for design
automation projects. Picking the right tool for the job
not only ensures improved productivity, but also
eliminates wasted time and resources.

Hold everyone accountable

Of course, when you embark on a significant new
product development initiative, it is important to set
up processes and use tools that hold everyone
accountable. To keep the proverbial “machine
running smoothly” during the NPD process,
accountability is key, Just as important as picking the
right team, is selecting the right set of tools that will
allow transparency of the NPD process and hold
accountable stakeholders at each stage of
development.

Why work with CCE?

CCE's proprietary and secured web-based Work
Order Management System, PowerLink, provides
total visibility and accountability of your new product
development initiatives by facilitating reliable and
secure communications, with a single set of
documents available to all stakeholders, worldwide.
PowerLink is the perfect complement to TrEND.

So, what’s the moral of the story?

New Product Development (NPD) is hard. Seeking
outside help to assist you with NPD is harder. Dire as
it may sound, you will fail at NPD unless you find an
engineering partner who’s honest about their
capabilities, has experienced engineers with broad
industry experience, proven processes, reliable
communication infrastructure that facilitates NPD
and tools that provide complete transparency &
accountability during the NPD initiative. If they also
happen to have resources at a lower cost location,
that’s icing on the cake.

CCE scores top grades on all counts and should
absolutely be your partner of choice for all new
product development initiatives. With TrEND &
PowerLink at both ends, whether you’re sketching
an initial concept during ideation, collaborating on
design changes or discussing feedback on a
manufactured part, location is no longer an issue
and communication no longer a barrier! Working
with CCE will certainly accelerate your new product
development process.